


Questions

by Elfpen



Series: It's an Enormous World [6]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alchemy, Alkahestry, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Professor Edward Elric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 03:29:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17738144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfpen/pseuds/Elfpen
Summary: Another post-canon ficlet. Sequel to Inequivelent Exchange, Good Shot, and The Circle. Dr. Elric has to take personal leave from work, which means someone else has to teach his classes. Mr. Elric steps up to the task and ends up fielding the curiosity of one of Edward's most loyal students. From the outside looking in, the lives of the Elric brothers really are something else.





	Questions

Neal couldn't bear the thought of leaving his bed. It was Monday. It was November. If his radio alarm was to be believed, it was a Monday in November with a 80% chance of freezing rain. He cracked open the eye that wasn't buried in his pillow so he could see his clock, blurred and sideways. 5:57. He groaned himself awake and somehow made it to the bathroom. The lights burned his eyes.

He was so ready to graduate he could've cried. He wanted his degree so he could move on. He'd become a government researcher, or maybe teach at a regional school back in the south, close to home - so long as they didn't expect him to stay in Central for a doctorate, didn't make him write even longer papers for more grades and no salary.

He stepped out into the rain, which was still too wet to freeze, and began the trudge toward the bus stop. It wasn't that he didn't like university. He liked Central. He liked studying alchemy. He certainly liked studying alchemy with the world-class minds of the Central U department. But it'd been six years, and he'd been studying with Dr. Elric every term, and Dr. Elric insisted on holding his classes at 7am.

The bus ride faded into a blur, as it had for six years. Neal drifted into class alongside a horde of fellow ghosts, all laden with bags and books and attire that had deteriorated in style and condition since the start of term. They were ragged and worn, but had all shown up for class at 7am on a Monday in November. The freshmen showed up out of fear. The seniors showed up because they knew that despite how tired they were, unless they intended on earning higher degrees, this was their last chance to study under true genius. Edward Elric, despite his thorny disposition and stern grades, was the foremost Alchemical scholar in Amestris.

He was also, apparently, running late. As the students filed into their unofficially assigned seats, they swapped uncertain glances, each checking the room number on the door and the clock on the wall. Right room. Right time. No professor.

"I don't think this has ever happened," one senior broke the silence. "Ever. Mark the day, he's not living this down." A few students chuckled.

"What do you think has happened?" Asked one of the juniors. "Do you think he's okay?"

"If he's not here in fifteen minutes, I'm going home," said Ren, a hungover freshman.

Neal wasn't sure he would. It wasn't enough that a professor was late; professors were late all the time, especially for morning classes. But this wasn't just a professor, it was Dr. Elric. He was  _never_ late.

The minutes ticked by in uncomfortable silence and mounting curiosity. The longer they waited, the more Neal worried that something bad must've happened.

Fourteen minutes past seven, the door opened. They all looked up. A tall blond man in a rain-dappled trench coat came in with a briefcase full of papers. "I'm so sorry I'm late," he said, setting his bag down with a  _thunk._  He shook off his coat and hung it to dry. "Terrible traffic this morning."

The students collectively craned their heads to look at him. Had Dr. Elric cut his hair? No, no it wasn't the hair. It was the voice. It was both.

"I've lost us a bit of time, so let's get right to it.," he wiped water off of his short-cropped hair and clapped his hands. He consulted his notes, and began: "Mechanical repair matrices are pretty simple in design, they have to be, so it's mostly in the touch. Today we're going to go over-"

"Excuse me, Professor," Neal raised his hand.

"Uh," The lecturer had to look around a bit before he spotted the speaker. Dr. Elric hadn't had to do that in three years. When he finally spotted Neal, he smiled. "Yes?"

Neal blinked back surprise when he met eyes with the man, because his eyes were the exact same unnerving gold as Dr. Elric's, but looked at him from the wrong face. "You're not Dr. Elric," he said

The man laughed. "No, sorry, you're stuck with plain old Mr. Elric today." He smiled as if this were a joke and looked back down at his notes. "Now, mechanical matrices. You should've read this week about-"

"But, sir, who," Neal hesitated when the man looked up at him again. "You're…  _Mr._ Elric?"

The man seemed just as confused as the students. He glanced around the room, seeing their befuddlement. "Yes, I'm Alphonse." Neal's eyes immediately widened, but the rest of the class did not react. Alphonse clarified, "I'm Edward's younger brother."

There was the briefest of pauses before 7 o'clock realization dawned. A few students gasped. Edward Elric was a respected scholar and well-known for his encyclopedic knowledge of Amestrian alchemy. However, if you wanted to learn about alkahestry, the alchemy of the East, you'd be hard pressed to learn anything without consulting the translations of his younger brother, Alphonse Elric. Neal had taken an elective class on Alkahestry two years ago, when he thought he'd wanted to be a doctor. He stared openly, watching the man in a whole new light.

"I'm going to be his replacement," said Alphonse, ignoring their surprise. "Now, you should have read this week about-"

"Replacement?" Ren interrupted this time. "Has he retired or something?"

"Retir- no," Alphonse said, still baffled and sounding annoyed. "I'm just filling in for a few weeks while he's on paternity leave. So if you'll-"

"Paternity leave?" Exclaimed one of the female students near the back. "Dr. Elric has a kid?"

"Dr. Elric is  _married?"_ asked another.

"Oh come on," Neal joined in, turning in his seat to fix the freshman with a condescending look, "he talks about his wife  _constantly."_

"What?"

"Winry, he talks about her all the time." The room was growing loud with chatter, half a dozen conversations and arguments growing and clashing like rapids.

"I thought Winry was his mechanic."

"No, she's his wife."

"What?"

"He wears a ring, are you blind?"

"I get the feeling," said Alphonse, with a voice that said he spoke above loud groups with at least passing regularity, "that my brother hasn't explained how this is going to work." The room replied with awkward silence. Alphonse set aside his notes and scrubbed a hand over the unkempt stubble that shimmered under his slightly fuller mustache. Absently, Neal wondered if Alphonse had had time to shave amidst childcare duty.

"Edward- sorry,  _Dr. Elric,"_ the man gave the slightest of eyerolls at that, " _-_ is going to be out for a while. His wife Winry-"

"I knew it," Neal said before he could catch himself. Thankfully, Alphonse ignored him.

"-had a baby this weekend, and they need Edward to stay home and take care of their kids so she can rest. I'll be filling in for the rest of term, since the other faculty is booked." That seemed like an odd reason to Neal - the faculty was never  _really_ booked. "Any questions?"

A dozen hands shot up. Alphonse looked stunned.

"Oh, hell." He sighed. He pointed to someone in the front row. "Yes?"

"How many kids does Dr. Elric have?"

"Four, as of Saturday." A round of "aww"s as well as " _what"_ s went around the room and Neal spotted a smile beneath Alphonse's mustache. The next student didn't wait to be called on.

"How long has he been married? And why didn't I know that he was married?" Asked the girl, who sounded disappointed.

"Because you only ever look at his face and his butt?" said another girl.

Neal couldn't help it when he burst out laughing along with the rest of the class. Dr. Elric's popularity with female students, particularly freshmen, was not a secret. It must not have been a secret to the Elrics either, because Alphonse was repressing a grin as though he were in on the joke. "He and Winry have married for about nine years."

"Are  _you_ married?" Asked the second girl, a wicked grin on her face. More laughter. Alphonse looked somewhat more flustered. He looked at the clock.

"Surely this is an alchemy class and not a dating service. Now did any of you read  _Reparational Alchemy_ or not?"

Neal pulled out his textbook along with the other students, but over the next two hours he didn't actually hear much of what Alphonse was saying. His mind was tossed back through his years of study in this room, every other morning at 7am in lecture with Dr. Elric.

Though it'd taken him two extra years to finish his degree, Neal was not a back-row student. He had two jobs, yes, but he always stayed after class to ask questions and learn more from the professors. Dr. Elric often had to leave class in a rush, but when he had time or during office hours, he'd happily talked with Neal for hours at a time, and not just about coursework. Neal had bared his insecurities to the professor more than once: his anxiety about his future, how tired he was from working through school, how he loved one scholar and detested another. Dr. Elric had laughed with him and nodded in understanding when he needed it. He'd given book recommendations and taken some, too. After six years' worth of after-class conversations, Neal had fooled himself into thinking that he knew Dr. Elric, that they were even friends. But he was beginning to wonder if anyone in the room really knew him at all.

"-looks less like a true transmutation circle," Alphonse was saying, "and more like a triangle, or star, with a circle element binding it together. Like this - um… uh," the sounds of uncertainty drew Neal from his reverie to see Alphonse Elric turning around in circles looking for chalk. There was none on the chalkboard, and none in the dispenser to the side of the board. "Oh, come on, brother," Alphonse's soft exclamation was audible in the quiet.

Before anyone could tell him that Dr. Elric usually kept a stash in the top drawer of his desk, Alphonse had jogged over to the pantry of supplies in the back of the room. All alchemy classrooms had one, and the department admin made sure they were freshly stocked for whatever in-class alchemy a course might require.

"The reason for this is because most reparational circles are actually arrays written in a compact form. Think of it as shorthand alchemy," Alphonse continued lecturing, raising his voice to be heard over his rummaging. "Because you have to pack so much information into a small array, it's important to get it right. As I said before, a lot of the detail is actually up to touch, which can make things tricky - ah, here it is." He came away from the pantry with a large bottle of calcium carbonate and jogged back over to the desk, leaving the pantry doors ajar. "The size of the array doesn't actually have to match the size of the object you're repairing, but it has to correspond to the material cost of your exchange." To the bemusement of his audience, he unscrewed the bottle and dumped nearly the entire thing onto the desk. The white powder piled on top of his briefcase, on top of their papers, on top of everything. "So if I were trying to repair a radio with cracked vacuum tubes, for instance," as he spoke, Alphonse clapped his hands together and a high-pitched tone filled the air, almost as if he were about to–

He pressed his hands down onto the desk, there was a flash of blue energy, and there were very suddenly a dozen sticks of blackboard chalk where there had been a complete mess before. One of them began to roll off the desk. Alphonse caught it as it fell and immediately turned to draw an alchemical array on the blackboard. "Something," he denoted while the class collectively gaped behind his back, "like this," he drew quickly and precisely, "should work just fine. But you have to know something about mechanics before you try it, or it won't work for very long. Now," he turned back to the class, "Anyone want to give it a try?"

Ren immediately raised his hand. "Yes, come on up," Alphonse encouraged.

"Okay but," Ren said, eyes now wide and alert, where before there was only hangover. "Could you teach me how to do it like  _that_?" he pointed to the chalk.

Alphonse gave it a passing glance and in a tone like sharpened glass said, "Absolutely not." Ren's face wilted in surprise, and he looked away. "But you can use the chalk, if that's what you're asking," Alphonse added with a smile. It was meant to be a joke, but the look on his face when he'd answered Ren's question kept the class from laughing.

As the freshman tried and failed a few times to repair a radio, Neal found his mind travelling from the class once more. The look on Alphonse's face reminded him of something that had happened years ago, something that he wasn't even sure he remembered correctly now. In his freshman year, he'd been overzealous about his classes, and had taken an upper level alchemy course with Dr. Elric. Same room, same time, in what felt like a different century. There had been a prick student in that class - a senior, Neal thought, who'd pushed Dr. Elric's buttons the whole term because he couldn't comprehend that their alchemy professor couldn't actually perform alchemy. Neal couldn't remember details, but somehow the subject of human transmutation had come up, and Dr. Elric had launched into a life story too absurd to be believed.

The permutations of the story that Dr. Elric had told had found their way into the dorms and bars around the university, and fact had morphed into myth with the rapidity afforded by a culture that was inherited by a new generation every four years. No one actually believed the stories now. There were no students left on campus who remembered the incident. But in the quiet of his own brain, Neal was beginning to remember.

Dr. Elric had said something in his exhaustion and anger that day, something about human transmutation, and his brother losing his soul, and armor, and blood, and giving up his own ability to perform alchemy to bring his brother back. He'd never specified whether or not his brother could do alchemy. With that kind of suckerpunch of a lecture, Neal had never even wondered.

"You're getting there, but you're leaving out the equation to remove oxygen from the vacuum tubes," Alphonse was telling Ren, "try it again, but this time…"

He had so,  _so_ many questions.

As was his custom, Neal stayed after everyone else had left. But once the lecture hall was empty and it was just him and Alphonse Elric, he didn't know what to say. Neal stared at Alphonse's back as he stretched to erase the many circles and descriptions from the blackboard. Neal clenched and unclenched his fist before working up the courage to say,

"Thanks for subbing in." He immediately realized that this was an incredibly lame thing to say. "You probably have a lot of other stuff you could be doing, so I appreciate it." Alphonse turned to him, surprised to see a student there. Neal wondered if he had ever taught a university class.

"Oh, sure," Alphonse's voice was far gentler now that he wasn't lecturing to a hall of sixty students. He seemed overall a far more relaxed, approachable person than his brother. Neal felt at ease. "I'm happy to help out." Alphonse resumed erasing, coughing at the chalk dust.

"Why don't you just…" Neal shrugged, and clapped his hand together, miming what Alphonse had done earlier that day. The alchemist laughed, and stood on his toes to reach a high spot on the board.

"Alchemy can't solve everything," he said.

"Yeah," Neal agreed with an uncertain smile. He couldn't let the conversation die. He had too many questions. "You said earlier that you're here because the rest of the faculty is booked?"

"Yeah."

"I don't mean any offense, but… the faculty is never booked. Dr. Trenner only has one class this term."

Alphonse put down the eraser and dusted chalk off his hands. He side-eyed Neal. "Well," he said, sounding found out. "Between you and me, the Dean isn't all that happy that I'm here, since I don't have a Ph.D. But he let me in because… you know the Theory of Inequivalent Exchange?"

"Yeah, of course." It'd been a staple of Dr. Elric's classes for years. He'd published a few books on the topic.

"Have you ever learned about it from any of the other faculty?"

Neal had to think about it. He frowned. "No," he realized out loud.

"That's because none of them understand how it works, much less how to teach it."

Neal blinked at him. "Wait," he said, not sure what Alphonse was implying, "really?"

"Ed only got them to let me lecture for him because Inequivelent Exchange will be a part of the final essay, and none of them understand how it works. I do." He froze, and fixed Neal with a frantic look. "Please don't tell anyone I told you that that's on the final."

Neal could not decide what to ask about first. How did the faculty expect students to learn a theory if they did not understand it themselves? Why was Dr. Elric teaching it if no one understood it? How long was this final essay going to be? But when he ended up asking was:

"How do you understand how it works, then?"

Alphonse was digging through his brother's desk, collecting important papers. "Ed and I came up with the theory together."

Neal realized that he did not know Dr. Elric or his family whatsoever, but that he would very much like to know them more.

"I always thought you were more of an alkahestrist," he said. Alphonse smiled at him.

"Oh, so you  _have_ heard of me? Central U students usually don't know I exist, 'cept for the medics," he chuckled. "I was an alchemist before I learned alkahestry. Do you know any?"

"A little. I thought I wanted to be a doctor at one point, but, uh…" Neal shrugged. "I'm a little too squeamish."

"Nothing wrong with that," Alphonse said, closing his briefcase and pulling on his coat. "If you want to practice some time, I'll be here until end of term."

"Oh," it was an unexpected kindness. "Thanks." If it gave him more time to pick the brain of Dr. Elric's brother, he would be more than willing to revisit the basics. "I mean, if you're not too busy."

"Oh," Alphonse waved a dismissive hand. "I'm mostly just visiting family and helping out here. Aside from classes, I should have plenty of time."

"Oh," Neal realized that he had no idea what Alphonse Elric's actual occupation was, aside from the translator of Xingese texts. Surely he had a job, right? Just one more question to add to the pile. "Perfect," he found himself saying. "I'd really appreciate that."

"Sure thing. See you on Wednesday," Alphonse waved goodbye and was gone.

There were only four weeks of classes left, Neal realized. He was going to have to make them count.

* * *

Despite the unexpected disruption, classes passed in a surprisingly normal rhythm. However, instead of exchanging opinions and book recommendations with Dr. Elric, Neal stayed after class to learn about alkahestry with Alphonse. Or at least, alkahestry was ostensibly why he was there. He used every opportunity he could to pick out new information about the Elric family.

"Oh yeah," Alphonse said readily when Neal asked if he and his brother had always been interested in alchemy. "We started reading alchemy textbooks for fun when we were practically toddlers." This made him laugh. "They were the only books we had in the house - our dad was a pretty brilliant alchemist."

"Really?" It was somehow easy to forget that people like Edward Elric even  _had_ fathers. "What's his name?"

"You wouldn't have heard of him," Alphonse said, carefully copying out an alkahestrist's star for the day's lesson. "Van Hohenheim?"

Neal chuckled, and then felt bad for it. "No, I haven't heard that name before, I would've remembered." Alphonse didn't seem offended in the slightest.

"I think dad was always a little embarrassed about his name," Alphonse smiled. "Actually, I think he was embarrassed about a lot of things. He was a pretty reserved guy."

"I take it… I take he's passed away?" Neal asked carefully.

"Years and years ago," Alphonse answered. It explained the easy affection on his face. "Wherever he is, I'm sure he and my mom are having a grand old time not worrying about things like this," Alphonse turned his book around to show Neal an overly complicated and faded alkahestry matrix.

"Oh my gosh, what is that even  _for?"_ Neal had to ask, gaping at the thing. The conversation morphed away from family and toward the complexities of alkahestry. Only later did Neal absorb what Al had said about his parents.

 _Years and years ago… he and my mom._ Neither Alphonse nor his brother were old. At most, they might've been five, ten years older than Neal himself.  _Years and years ago._ The words stayed with him for a long time.

* * *

"Do people really call Dr. Elric 'Ed'?" On the second week, after hearing Alphonse refer to Dr. Elric alternatively "Brother", "Edward", and "Ed", Neal's curiosity got the better of him. He'd interrupted Alphonse in the middle of an anecdote about travelling to Xing with Dr. Elric, and the sudden question gave the alchemist pause.

"I can hardly think of anyone who doesn't call him that," Alphonse laughed. "I mean, besides you students. And Major Armstrong. Or is he Colonel now? Oh, and General Mustang. Anyway," Alphonse shrugged. "He's been Ed as long as I can remember."

"Wait, he knows General Mustang?" Neal exclaimed. There were some rumors, a while back, after the terrorist scare on campus. But he hadn't actually believed them.

"Yeah, we've known Mustang since we were kids."

There was not enough time to unpack that.

"Oh, um, cool," Neal said, trying to sound nonchalant. "So… what does General Mustang call him?"

"Fullmetal," Alphonse said, and flashed a grin that Neal recognized form his own younger siblings. "Drives brother  _nuts._ "

Neal laughed along with him, and resisted the urge to ask what on earth "Fullmetal" meant.

He did some research in the library later, and stayed up until 2am reading about an Amestris he did not recognize.  _Apparently,_ he scribbled in his notebook next to a series of poorly-drawn alkahestry stars,  _Dr. Elric is the reason why the Military's age of enrollment was raised to 18._

* * *

On the Wednesday of the third week, Neal walked with Alphonse to the library, as had become their custom, so they could discuss whatever new alkahestry topic Alphonse had picked out for the day. But they were interrupted halfway when a sleek black car pulled up to the curb. The driver's window slid down to reveal a trim brunet man in military blues and epaulets that made Neal do a double-take.

"Elric," the man said, in a voice Neal recognized from the radio, "why didn't you tell me you were in the country?"

"Oh hey General," said Alphonse, as though he'd bumped into an old friend at the grocery store. "I've been staying with brother for weeks, didn't you know?"

General Mustang shook his head. "Fullmetal never tells me anything. How's Winry doing?"

"She's doing great - so is baby Heimel. I think brother's the one who's lost the most sleep so far."

"It's what he gets for having so many kids," Mustang said through a smile. He glanced at Neal as if noticing him for the first time. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Oh, General, this is one of brother's students, Neal," Alphonse introduced, and Neal felt suddenly exposed. He'd been happily spectating on the conversation, but was now the momentary center of attention. He could not say anything, so he gave a pathetic wave and blushed instead.

"Mr. Elric's been helping me brush up on my alkahestry," Neal managed to say after an awkward pause.

"Oh? You're a lucky student then, he's in woefully short supply around here. Unfortunately, I might have to cut your lesson short," Mustang turned attention back to the blond alchemist, "The Fuhrer's learned you're in town and wants to pick your brain."

"Oh?" Alphonse did not seem to hear the words in the same gravitas that Neal had. "About what?"

Mustang glanced at Neal. "Oh you know," he shrugged, "same ol', same ol'."

"Ah," Alphonse nodded, and turned to Neal.

"Sorry, Neal, but we may have to revisit this another-"

"Oh, no, it's fine, seriously," the student put out his hands in surrender. How was he supposed to compete with the  _Fuhrer,_ for crying out loud? "I'll see you on Friday."

"Have a nice afternoon, see you then," Alphonse smiled, and then climbed into the passenger seat next to General Roy Mustang, the man who most everyone seemed to think would be the next Fuhrer.

 _Of course,_ Neal found himself thinking. The more he learned about the Elrics, the more his burgeoning sense of flippancy grew to fill the gaps of his own understanding.  _Of course he's friends with the Fuhrer and the Fuhrer's favorite General. Why wouldn't he be?_

* * *

Much of what Neal had begun to learn about Edward Elric was publicly available. So long as you knew which records librarians to ask, it was simple enough to learn that Edward had been a state alchemist from the age of twelve ( _twelve!_ Neal still had a hard time believing it), was to this day under General Mustang's command, and had been involved in a not insignificant number of skirmishes in the last years of Fuhrer King Bradley's administration. It had also been fairly easy to learn that he'd grown up in a rural, relatively poor village in the east, that his parents hadn't been married, that he had brother one year his junior, and that Elric was their mother's surname.

But left to the mercy of the library, it was next to impossible to learn anything about his personal history. There were his three academic monographs on alchemy, but that was it. It wasn't like other professors. Other professors had news stories, guest appearances on the radio, marriage announcements, birthdays, grown kids and grandkids who they bragged on constantly. But Edward Elric was private to a fault.

This was why Neal valued his conversations with Alphonse Elric more and more. He'd known Edward Elric for six years, and in those six years, he had learned hardly a thing about the man. But now, Alphonse had opened the proverbial floodgates, and Neal couldn't turn away.

"Wait, was he really?" Neal asked around a mouthful of his sandwich. This particular afternoon, he was learning how alkahestry could be used for first aid, but they'd taken a break for lunch.

"Yeah," Alphonse said, licking mustard off his smile, "I've always been a little bit taller than him, but when we were teens, he was honestly really short. Took him forever to hit his growing spurt." He chuckled. "He's still got a chip on his shoulder about it."

"Are you still taller than him?"

Alphonse looked smug. "Yeah, so long as he doesn't count his hair. But don't tell him I told you that."

Neal laughed. "Course not."

He didn't tell anyone anything he'd learned from Alphonse Elric, but there was so much. He learned that Winry  _was_ Edward's mechanic as well as his wife, and that they'd been friends since childhood. He learned that Edward could not stand the taste of milk, and that he'd struggled in most school subjects as a child because he'd been so preoccupied with alchemy. He learned that he had four kids now, two girls and two boys, and that he held his classes so early in the morning so that he could go home to take care of them while Winry oversaw her automail business during the day.

All of this information was freely given, of course, but Neal felt as though there was some unspoken pact that kept him from breathing a word of it to anyone. Maybe it was the fact that Dr. Elric himself wasn't there. Maybe it was the mystery that still shrouded his years in the military, the years leading up to the Coup. Maybe it was the inexplicable connections between Dr. Elric and General Mustang, Alphonse and the Fuhrer. Maybe it was his respect for both brothers.

But sometimes, it was hard. He wanted to go to all of his university friends, all of whom had graduated years ago, and shake them by their shoulders and make them listen to what he'd learned in the last three and a half weeks.  _"Do you remember that one time that Dr. Elric lost it and told us all about the times he tried human transmutation? Do you remember the look on that one punk-whose-name-I-can't-remember's face? It's all true, and his life is even weirder than that. Do you remember his brother who got turned into a suit of armor? Do you remember Dr. Elric talking about that? I met him. And he's amazing, and insane. You are not going to believe the lives these guys live."_

And many of them really  _wouldn't_ believe him. So he absorbed it all alone.

It'd taken him weeks to muster up the courage to ask Alphonse about the one thing he'd been itching to ask for weeks. After the last regular class of the term, he'd walked with Alphonse to the library and half-listened to him talk about Xingese archives for an hour and a half, all the while sweating in his seat because he knew that this was his last chance.

It was still afternoon when they left the library to head back toward the bus station, but the winter sky was already drifting into dusk. Alphonse walked ahead of him, gold hair limned by the nearly-set sun. Neal clenched his hands, swallowed, licked his lips, and asked:

"Is it true that Dr. Elric bound your soul to a suit of armor?"

Alphonse stopped so abruptly that Neal almost ran into him. The blond swiveled on his heel and stared down at him, speechless. Alphonse's face was shadowed in the dim evening light so that Neal couldn't see his expression. He immediately regretted opening his mouth at all, but then Alphonse said, in a tone of more surprise than offense,

"He told you about that?"

Neal realized that he had no plan.

"It was… I mean…" he sighed. "I've... I've been here a long time. Like, a _long_ time. Several years ago there was this… this one class, where a student asked about human transmutation, and Dr. Elric,"

"Oh wow, you were there?" Alphonse said. "Brother told me about that." Slowly, he turned back around began walking again. Neal took it as an invitation to follow. Their shoes sounded unusually loud on the sidewalk as they walked through the pregnant silence. "Yeah," Alphonse said at length. The sky was too dark now for Neal to see his face, but his voice sounded like he was travelling deep down memory lane. "Yeah, it's true."

Such a quiet, simple verification was, somehow, even more terrifying than Dr. Elric's speech those years ago. Neal had too many questions. He always had too many questions. He had to stop asking so many questions, taking advantage of the memories of a man who'd obviously been through more than he could fathom. But he just couldn't help it.

"And it's true about Dr. Elric's alchemy? About giving it up to bring you back?"

Alphonse smiled. Neal didn't see it, but when he spoke, he could hear it. "Yeah," the man said quietly, "that too."

They continued down the path in silence. "He seems like an amazing guy – and an amazing brother."

"Yeah, he is," Alphonse said, no conceit in the statement. "The best." His sincerity temporarily quieted the stream of questions on the tip of Neal's tongue. The street lights began to buzz awake.

"He's still a pretty mean teacher, if you ask me," Neal said, and Alphonse laughed.

"If you think he's tough, you should meet the woman who taught  _us,"_ he said.

The questions came flooding back.

* * *

It was 5:57 on a Monday in January, and Neal had to peel himself out of bed so he could shuffle over to the bathroom and let the lights burn his eyes awake. It was snowing and the world was quiet as he commuted to campus for his last first day of class.

"Alright," Edward Elric arrived to a full classroom at 6:59 and set his briefcase down with a distinctive  _thunk._  Every student in the hall snapped to attention - every student but Neal. "Another year, another class, another chance for you all to prove the Dean wrong when he says I fail too many students." He grinned at them, a real enjoyment lighting up his eyes. "Welcome to advanced theoretical alchemy. Let's have a bit of fun, 'kay?"

That first class passed as any other class, with introductions and a syllabus and a full lecture that the newer students weren't expecting on their first day. Then it was over, and Neal stayed, as he always did, and Dr. Elric let him, as he always did.

"It's good to see you again, Dr. Elric," he said when he got the chance to go forward and shake the man's hand. The professor looked a little more harried than when Neal had last seen him. He he dark circles under his eyes and more scruff on his cheeks. But he looked happier, too. "Congrats to you and your wife, by the way."

"Oh, thank you," the professor seemed genuinely surprised that a student knew anything about him, and shuffled awkwardly. Neal realized that, as private as he was, Dr. Elric probably wasn't used to receiving personal well-wishes during business hours. "And uh, and congrats to you too, right? Graduating at long last?"

"Yeah," Neal laughed with him. "I have to thank you for that - you and your brother, actually, he was a huge help last fall."

"Oh good," he grinned. "Al really seemed to enjoy it here - I wish I could convince him to stay. But the Emperor's his brother-in-law, so what're you going to do?" Edward's shrug was too casual, and in an instant, all of the questions he had about Edward duplicated into new questions about Alphonse.  _Where does the rabbit hole end?_

"Wait a second," Neal began; his experience last term had evaporated his ability to keep from asking questions. "The Emperor? The Emperor as in Emperor Ling Yao?"

"What, do you know of a different Emperor?"

The fact that he did not did not answer Neal's question.

A soft knock came at the door.

"Yeah?" said Dr. Elric, turning to the sound.

After a brief hesitation, the door cracked open to reveal a smaller, softer version of Dr. Elric with blue eyes, glasses, a too-big dress, and pigtails.

"Papa," she said, hanging on the doorknob, "the mean poof-haired man is looking for you."

"Henry," Edward sighed, sounding equal parts embarrassed and exhausted, "what have we said about calling people names? C'mere, kiddo. I let you come along because you said you'd be nice, so  _be nice._ "

Neal was transfixed. Knowing that Dr. Elric had kids was very different than seeing one in the flesh. The girl, who couldn't have been older than five or six, went over to her father and he picked her up by the armpits and set her in his chair. "Henry, this is Neal," Edward introduced. "Neal, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Henrietta,"

"Henry," Henrietta clung to her father's arm.

"It's very nice to meet you, Henry," Neal gave her a gentlemanly nod. She grinned at him. She had dimples. He was defenseless.

"Now you keep Neal in line for five minutes," Edward pried his daughter's hands off his sleeve, while I talk to the Dean," Edward said, stepping backward toward the door. "I'll be right back," the last phrase was directed at at him, Neal realized. The door shut behind him.

"How old are you?" Asked Henry, sitting at her father's desk like a judge at their bench.

"How old are you?" Neal countered.

"This many," Henry held out five and a half fingers. Neal gave her an impressed look.

"Wow, you're almost old enough to teach your dad's classes for him."

She grinned, only slightly bashful.

"How old are you?" Henry asked again, still holding out her five and a half fingers. Neal laughed.

"More than that." She held out all of her fingers. "More than that."

"How many?" she asked, baffled as to how anyone could be so ancient as to exceed all ten of her fingers.

"Twenty-four," Neal told her. She wrinkled her nose.

"You're old, like my papa."

Neal chuckled, half at her and half at the expense of Dr. Elric. Dignity in the workplace did not translate home, he supposed. Still,

"Your papa is a pretty amazing guy, you know."

"I know," Henry said magnanimously, swivelling in her father's chair.

After everything he'd learned about the Elrics and all he still didn't know, he couldn't possibly argue with that.

"Well, good," he smiled at her. "So long as you know."


End file.
